PSYC 783: Practicum
Spring 2013: Tuesday 3:30-5:00 or Wed 3:30-5:00
Course Syllabus
Instructors: Dr. Julia Wood Dr. Meredith Nelson
Cell: 903-276-1089 Phone: 797-5199
Email: Email:
Cell: 318-470-2534
You are responsible for awareness of all information in this document! If it’s written down here, it’s important to know. There are no appropriate reasons to not know something that is written down here.
Prerequisites: Students must have been admitted to candidacy, and have completed at least 24 semester hours of the approved program of study. To begin practicum, students must have successfully completed PSYC 701, PSYC 705, PSYC 720, Psyc 721, PSYC 723, and PSYC 728, and must also have the consent of MSCP faculty to continue to this phase of training. Consent of the department indicates that students have developed clinical, ethical, and professional skills as expected during their progression through the MSCP program.
Description:
This course is designed as a milestone in the development of one’s identity and skills as a counselor. Didactic, interactive, and experiential activities will aid in continued development and learning in a way that reflects the standards of an accredited program. Coursework consists of supervised practice in major counseling activities including assessment, treatment, and case management. Special emphasis will be placed on professional, legal, and ethical practice in an applied setting, as well as on appropriate utilization of supervision. The practicum must be completed in an approved field setting and requires 100 clock hours; 40 hours of direct client contact and 60 hours of indirect service.
Texts: Baird, B. N. (2005). The internship, practicum, and field placement handbook: A guide
for the helping profession. (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Preston, J., & Johnson, J. (2009). Clinical Psychopharmacology Made Ridiculously
Simple, (6th ed). Medmaster, Inc.
Jewell, T. (2004). Understanding Plagiarism. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Required reading will also include articles from professional journals related to your client population that you will briefly present to the class. At least one of these will be presented over the course of the term.
Relationship to Conceptual Framework: The mission of the LSUS College of Education and Human Development is cultivating responsible professionals who are committed to diversity, critical thinking, and pedagogy. In this course, candidates demonstrate commitment to diversity through their work with clients and peers; they demonstrate critical thinking by competent case conceptualization and professional practice; and they demonstrate pedagogy by consulting appropriately with their peers and site staff.
Goals: The primary goal of the practicum and internship is for it to serve as the culminating experience for students who are training to be clinicians in a mental health setting. A triadic training relationship is formed between the student, the faculty supervisors, and the site supervisors, and is maintained throughout the internship. The scientist-practitioner training model utilized by LSUS is designed to enable students to integrate and apply the skills in individual and group counseling, assessment, and consultation that have been introduced in their graduate coursework. It consists of a set of progressive experiences with steadily increasing autonomy (and responsibility) in a closely supervised training setting. These experiences are designed to help the student counselor best develop conceptual, clinical, ethical, professional, and legal practice skills while providing a broad range of client experiences in terms of diversity and presenting issues. It is comprised of a set of progressive exposure to increasingly more complex responsibilities in a closely supervised training setting to broaden the array of skills to serve clients.
Course Objectives: By the end of internship, the student will be able to:
1. Demonstrate a solid identity within the counseling profession through knowledge of and participation in professional associations. Examples include the Louisiana Counseling Association, The American Counseling Association, and the National Board of Certified Counselors and their divisions, branches, and affiliate organizations.
2. Apply the requirements of professional credentialing, such as state licensure/certification requirements for professional practice, to their own preparation for practice and the limits of their competence.
3. Demonstrate a thorough working knowledge of and adherence to ethical principles, standards, and guidelines as well as relevant legal guidelines where necessary.
4. Describe and demonstrate adherence to the appropriate policies and practices of the selected internship setting.
5. Demonstrate a thorough knowledge of the basic principles, processes, and guidelines for conducting a mental health assessment, including the intake interview, mental status exam, history, test administration and interpretation where appropriate, and creation of a treatment plan and a framework for case management.
6. Demonstrate the formation and development of a personal theoretical orientation that is well-grounded in established theory, along with an understanding of other counseling theories and the skills associated with them.
7. Demonstrate skill in the use of a variety of consultation practices, outreach and prevention strategies, community mental health advocacy, and crisis intervention strategies.
8. Demonstrate a high level of self-awareness into his/her own personal biases that one “brings into the room” that will either enhance or damage the counseling relationship and outcome. This is a singularly important tool for identifying competencies and areas for growth.
9. Demonstrate an awareness, understanding, and utilization of knowledge of diversity issues and concerns as they are encountered in a counseling context.
10. Describe, formulate, and implement interventions that related theory and practice in all counseling with clients.
11. Describe and demonstrate the essential characteristics of creating and maintaining a therapeutic relationship. Aspects include understanding of empathy, positive regard, genuineness, creating an atmosphere of safety, appropriate self-disclosure, and the power dynamics of the therapeutic relationship.
12. Demonstrate skill in tracking client change and the evaluation of interim and termination outcome for clients (treatment planning).
13. Demonstrate competence in a variety of technological issues related to counseling, including computer security issues and technological tools used to aid in assessment, counseling, consultation, outcome, program evaluation, and research functions of the professional counselor.
14. Demonstrate continuing, self-initiated education involved in addressing identified growth areas and maintaining appropriate professional development, including seminars, workshops, and other activities that contribute to personal and professional growth.
15. Demonstrate appropriate utilization of supervision and feedback and developmentally appropriate peer supervisory skills.
Practicum Requirements and Coursework:
Broad requirements include a minimum of 100 clock hours of approved internship experiences within the semester. There are also class-related assignments which must be completed. This includes:
1. 60 clock hours of direct contact with a diverse group of clients, including experience in both individual and group counseling as appropriate to the program of study.
2. An average of at least 1 hour per week of individual supervision that occurs regularly throughout the internship. This is usually performed by the site supervisor.
3. An average of at least 1.5 hours per week of group supervision that occurs regularly throughout the internship. This is usually performed by a program faculty member.
4. Successful completion of the 15 specific objectives noted above, as determined through consultation among the site supervisor and faculty supervisor. Informal feedback will be provided between the student, site supervisor, and faculty supervisor as internship progresses.
5. Successful completion and submission of an weekly activity log/journal each semester.
6. Successful completion, presentation, and submission of a formal case study and treatment report by the end of each term. Weekly case discussions are in addition to this requirement.
7. Submission and review of a formal evaluation report at midterm and at the end of the term by a site supervisor. This evaluation will reflect satisfactory completion of all course requirements and appropriate development as a counselor according to MSCP program expectations and the contractual agreement with the training site and program faculty. This is in addition to informal feedback over the course of the semester.
8. Adherence to any and all additional programmatic requirements as may be outlined in the program handbook during this period.
9. Completion of a Declaration of Practices and Procedures – Due the 2nd class session.
Note: You must continue at your site and in your group and individual supervision until the end of the third semester, even if you have completed all required hours for Practicum, Internship I, and Internship II. Extra hours accrued during the practicum semester may be applied to future semesters with instructor approval – this does not mitigate the requirement to complete three full semesters of clinical work. Changing an internship site is generally not allowed and will only be considered under exceptional circumstances (e.g., the site closes or all possible supervisors leave your site, unethical supervision practices, significant concerns about the site that cannot be resolved through discussion with the site).
Professional Article Presentation:
Each of you will be required to briefly present one to two articles from a professional journal related to your client population.
Journals and Weekly Discussions:
Each of you will keep a journal of your experiences as an intern. This is the place for you to reflect on significant occurrences, successful and/or unsuccessful work, or events that impact your development as a counselor. It is meant to be more of a processing exercise than a diary of daily events.
Each of you are required to be prepared to discuss one case or discussion issue per week, aside from the week that you have brought your case presentation. This will be facilitated by weekly electronic submission of journals that students keep of their internship experience. The weekly due date will be determined by the supervision group coordinator.
The final journal entry of the semester will be lengthier than the typical daily entries – approximately 3-5 pages; in this entry, you should take the opportunity to reflect on what you have learned about yourself as a counselor over the course of the entire semester. Keeping notes on goals and barriers will likely be of help to you in this.
Grading:
Site Supervisor Evaluations 30 points
Faculty Supervisor Evaluations 30 points
Attendance and Participation 15 points
Case Presentation/writeup 10 points
Article Presentations 5 points
Journal/Activity report 10 points
Total: 100 points
Case Discussion Format
There are five sections to a case presentation. Each section should contain the information noted. Generally these will be 3-5 pages.
SECTION 1 – Identifying Information (1-2 paragraphs)
· (fake) name, gender, age, racial/ethnic background, SES, living situation, pre-existing diagnosis/treatment
· Other possible information (required if it exists): sexuality, religious background, disability issues
SECTION 2 – Presenting Concern and Course of Treatment (varies based on length of
treatment)
· What was the client’s stated reason for coming to therapy? Are there other external reasons that the client came to therapy?
· How many times have you met with the client? What have you done over the course of treatment? It may be helpful to separate the therapy process into different stages, or even have at least one line about each session
· What were your treatment goals? How did you meet these goals (or how are you currently working toward these goals)
· What techniques have you been using in therapy?
· Is there concurrent treatment going on somewhere else?
· Is there a history of treatment? If so, was it successful or unsuccessful? Was the previous treatment for different issues or the same issues?
SECTION 3 – Conceptualization of the client (2-3 paragraphs)
· Why is the client having these issues?
· Use your theoretical orientation to justify your reasoning for the client having these issues
SECTION 4 – Multiaxial Diagnostic Impression
· A DSM-based 5-axis diagnosis of the client
· If your impression differs from your supervisors’ or coworkers’, why does it differ and what is your reasoning?
· Include 1-2 lines on the observed symptoms that led to this diagnosis and include ways that you ruled out other diagnoses, if applicable
SECTION 5 – Cultural Issues and Relationship Between Counselor and Client (2-3
paragraphs)
· Give a qualitative description of your relationship with the client. How is this relationship similar or different from their relationships with others?
· In what way was/is this client different from you?
· Did you specifically address this difference in therapy? Why or why not? If not, was this addressed in a less direct way?
· What kind of personal reactions did you have to these differences?
· How did these similarities and differences affect treatment?
· What did you have to learn about the client’s culture/patterns/experience to improve their experience in therapy?
· How did you go about learning these things about the client’s background? (examples would include asking the client, reading something on your own, asking someone else, etc.)
· Is there a way that you can generalize this process to help with other clients in future?
Recommended Texts:
Faiver, C., Eisengart, S., & Collonna, R. (2004). The counselor intern’s handbook. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth.
Frankl. V. (1959). Man’s search for meaning. New York: Simon & Schuster
Ivey, A., & Ivey, M. (2006). Intentional interviewing and counseling: Facilitating development in a multicultural society. (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Kottler, J. (2002). Counselors finding their way. American Counseling Association
Yalom, I. D. (1989). Love’s executioner and other tales of psychotherapy. New York: Harper Collins.
Recommended Websites:
www.apa.org (American Psychological Association)
www.counseling.org (American Counseling Association)
www.algbtic.org (Association for GLBT Issues in Counseling)
www.apsa.org (American Psychoanalytic Association)
www.ahpweb.org (Association for Humanistic Psychology)
www.behavior.net (Behavior OnLine)
www.nacbt.org (National Association for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)
www.constructivistpsych.org (Constructivist Psychology Network)
www.aamft.org (American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy)
www.lacounseling.org (Louisiana Counseling Association)
http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/resources/consumers.cfm (Evidence-based tools - the Centre
for Clinical Interventions)
http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/resources/mhp.cfm (Evidence-based tools)
Other Information: